Danger of jumping the gun in Libya

Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
and Foreign Minister
Kevin Rudd
are not the only ones having trouble getting their narratives aligned on Libya, although no other Western democracy is being similarly afflicted by such a schism between a head of government and that government’s chief diplomat.

Not the United States, although you suspect Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton
would favour a tougher response than
Barack Obama
; not Britain, where
David Cameron
and
William Hague
appear to be on the same page in their desire for tougher action; not France, where
Nicolas Sarkozy
and
Alain Juppe
are observing a united Gallic front in support of military intervention; and not Germany, where
Angela Merkel
and
Guido Westerwelle
are maintaining a cautious posture, like that of the US.

But leaving the Gillard-Rudd dysfunction aside – Rudd has, from early in the piece, been advocating a “no-fly zone", apparently without consulting the National Security Committee of Cabinet – NATO and the United Nations Security Council remain divided on what to do next, leaving a vacuum in Western decision making.

Eccentrically, Rudd conducts diplomacy on Twitter and via the pages of a national newspaper, serving as a bulletin board for what passes for Australian foreign policy these days, making Gillard appear weak in the process.

Meanwhile, the Libyan rebels continue to lose ground and Gaddafi is further emboldened (if there is an argument for a targeted assassination, this is it).

Among advocates for humanitarian intervention are those who have been refashioning history to argue that George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq encouraged an Arab spring, but equally it could be said that the US action in Iraq has stymied Western policy in the Middle East by providing a negative example of the consequences of such intervention.

Rather than enabling the West to pursue a bold policy towards Libya, the Bush imposition of a form of democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun has complicated the picture, and prompted a cascade of unintended consequences, including a hugely expensive US commitment in the region that has far from played itself out.

Not least of the constraints is a fear that any form of intervention would allow Gaddafi to rally support against Western invaders, enabling him to make common cause with Islamist extremists, including al-Qaeda itself, which he has been blaming for fomenting unrest in the first place.

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Weighing heavily in White House calculations is the potential cost of getting involved in another conflict in the Middle East beyond the three that are now being waged: Iraq, Afghanistan and an expensive war on terrorism that requires the US to devote billions of dollars to hunting down al-Qaeda terrorists in places such as the tribal areas of Pakistan and in Yemen, to name but two of the most visible theatres of conflict.

Does Washington want to take on the burden of another Middle East intervention, understanding the risks of escalation, including a requirement that US special forces be committed on the ground?

Remember Somalia – that ended disastrously for the Clinton administration when it intervened in a chaotic militia war on humanitarian grounds.

In Brussels, these are the sorts of issues that will have been percolating among NATO defence officials tasked with coming up with a satisfactory response to the latest developments, including continuing Russian and Chinese reluctance to sanction a UN Security Council mandate for a no-fly zone that would amount to a military declaration..

Unlike Britain and France, which have been arguing privately that a UN resolution is not required, using the Kosovo example, the US believes otherwise at this stage.

NATO has agreed, as a further interim step, to move ships closer to Libya, but not add to a naval deployment in the Gulf of Sidra off the Libyan coast. No progress was made towards the imposition of a no-fly zone.

Asked at a press conference if all this made NATO look powerless, US Defence Secretary
Robert Gates
said: “I think the key factor here is the limitation of the UN Security Council resolution 1970, which even when it comes to embargo, does not provide the authority for enforcement.

“So if there were to be a need for enforcement, there would need to be a new United Nations security resolution even for that purpose."

Circumstances could change quickly, caused possibly by a Srebrenica-type massacre, but for the moment diplomatic and security wheels are moving slowly, the Iraq debacle fresh in people’s minds, not to mention the lessons of Somalia and before that, Beirut.

NATO Secretary-General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen
summed up a consensus when he said that any move by NATO would require “a clear legal basis", strong support in the region and UN authorisation.

George Friedman, of security analyst STRATFOR, asks the hard-headed question in the paper How a Libyan No-Fly Zone Could Backfire: where lies US national interest?

“It is difficult to perceive the US national interest in Libya," Friedman writes.

“The interests of some European countries, like Italy, are more substantial, but it is not clear that they are prepared to undertake the burden without the United States.

“In evaluating such calls [for intervention] it is useful to remember that in war, Murphy’s Law always lurks.

“What can go wrong will go wrong, in Libya as in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Meanwhile, Gillard might demonstrate she is actually in control of Australian foreign policy by imposing a no-fly zone on her errant Foreign Minister by recalling him to Canberra and closing down his Twitter account.